What is Professor Jega up to at INEC?

With the fresh petition delivered to the Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, by employees of INEC on January 7, 2013, it would appear that matters are far worse today than they were when the article below, mildly edited, was published on 12 September, 2012. Like it or not, President Jonathan would now have to find a way of stepping into the ups-man-ship going in that agency because of its possible negative consequences on the 2015 general elections.It is now in the open why Jega wanted to be all-in-all as he recently requested of the government. Happy reading.

What game is the North up to at INEC?

Can Professor Jega, a celebrated academic and former University Vice-Chancellor, double as an ethnic bigot? Is the famous Professor Oba, former Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin, working in tandem with Jega in the former’s usual role of a Northern irredentist? Or is it as simple as the Federal Character Commission becoming comatose and toothless wherever in the Nigerian polity the North wields an unfair advantage? These and more questions agitate the mind on reading the advert: THE TAKE OVER OF INEC published in the Monday, 20 August, 2012, edition of this newspaper by the ELECTION INTEGRITY NETWORK but which in itself emanated from an earlier story by TheNews Magazine. It will be a little disingenuous, even unfair, to claim or even pretend that

INEC has just so suddenly become a Northern enclave. The story has always been the same since there is literally a Northern Executive Secretary, permanently in place, but with the addition of Jega as Chairman, cronyism and outright nepotism have assumed an industrial scale with Oba’s FCC’s ludicrous connivance.

For ease of reference, let us quote directly from the advert under reference. According to the publication, INEC’s top management is made up as follows:

7. Membership of its 9-Man Strategic Planning Committee reads as follows: Nuru A. Yakubu, Istianus Dalwang, Mustafa Kuta, M.S Mohammed. Torgba Nyitse, Emanuel Akeem all from the North with the exception of the duo of Mike Igini and Okechukwu Ndeche from the South. Add to this, the Executive Secretary who is from the same geo-political zone with Jega and, who, by the way has long passed the official retiring age. How blatant can some supposedly educated people get?

It’s impossible not to wonder how an otherwise accomplished academic conveniently overlook the fact that Nigeria has a a Federal Character prescription in its constitution. What will Jega claim as alibi for this totally unacceptable lop-lopsidedness in an agency that is so critical?

I found the following comments by Ifeanyi Izeze very useful in taking a look at the Federal Character Commission. Wrote Izeze in 2011 : ” When Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established in 1996, it was supposed to enforce the federal character principles which aimed at ensuring fair and equitable distribution of posts; social-economic amenities; and infrastruc-tural facilities among the federating units of the nation. The intention was for it to be the watchdog of government ministries, departments and agencies to ensure an evenly distributed workforce that reflects ethnic diversity and the geopolitical divides of the country’.

In recognition of its failings, wrote Izeze, the Commission after a Port Harcourt stakeholders retreat recounted as follows: ‘The FCC has delineated the country into national, state and local government levels as channels of distribution among the federating units for ease of implementation. Allocations at the national level, it said, will now be based on the 36 states and Abuja or the six geo-political zones or north and south …’ Apparently under Professor Oba, all these have been thrown into the trash can such that today, the North can completely dominate INEC with literally all its consultants coming from the North with nary a voice of warning from the Federal Character Commission.

Given Professor Oba’s history as Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, I am not in the least surprised that under his leadership, the Federal Character Commission has decided not know that INEC exists within the country’s laws.

It is here that one begins to suspect a collusion with the PDP Federal government, given the ringing silence from the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation. Not even a single warning to that office for its total ineffectiveness nor to Jega for the nauseating ethnic domination in INEC. Add to this, Jega’s clandestine decision to now use permanent voter’s cards for the next election, which cards will be obtained in the most dubious of ways as it will permit the registration of, not only minors, but totally non-existent persons, just so INEC can unilaterally swell registration figures in some given areas.

I doubt if Jega’s defenders know what incalculable damage they do to his reputation when, in mitigation, they claim that he met everything in place. If in all these years he cannot right the obvious wrongs then he certainly does not deserve all the adulation he got at his appointment by a man who, we now know, truly did not know him at all.

What then are the probable calculations? The Election Integrity Network is of the view that the structural iniquity in INEC epitomises nothing but a skewed regional interest especially at a time when geo-political struggle for power has assumed a violent dimension. The body believes that this is a carefully planned restructuring in which the most important organs responsible for future elections are placed smack in the hands of the North.

The only time in recent memory that I can recall a similar scenario was during the Abacha era when you could hardly find four Southerners on the list of the topmost twenty security officials and a security council meeting could hold with no southerner, whatever, in attendance, if you go strictly by rank.

Without a doubt, this arrangement at INEC cannot be a happenstance; rather it is the result of cold calculations aimed at the next elections. Nothing, for instance, stops some of Jega’s Northern top men in INEC from being transferred to other sections of the service as long as they do not lose their seniority. But nobody will dare.

The sponsors of the advert in question bemoaned the fate of the Southwest in the agency.

For me personally, this is a non-issue since it is a failure of the Yorubas in the PDP who are obviously not treated as equals as was recently eloquently demonstrated by Chairman Tukur who unilaterally sent its Yoruba Secretary packing. If these people now traversing the South-West ahead of the next elections were treated as co-equals, having lost the Speaker-ship of the House, they should have since ensured that they are adequately represented in agencies like INEC. This, however, will never happen since they are keener at feathering their individual nests as opposed to corporate South-West interests.

As things stand in INEC today, Mr President owes it a duty to Nigeria to clear up, the Augean stable as a stitch in time could more than save nine.